One of Doctors charged in connection with Matthew Perry’s ketamine overdose death made their first appearances in a Los Angeles courtroom Friday under a cooperation agreement with prosecutors. Dr. Mark Chavez was one of five people accused of supplying Perry with large amounts of ketamine before he was found floating face down in his hot tub on Oct. 28, 2023.
Chavez, 54, stood with his lawyers and said he understood the only criminal charge against him was conspiracy to distribute the opioid without proper screening and oversight. U.S. District Judge Jane B. Rosenbluth released him on $50,000 bail. Chavez did not enter a guilty plea but agreed to plead guilty at a hearing that has not yet been scheduled.
“He’s incredibly remorseful. Someone died. He doesn’t need to be a celebrity to feel remorse for that. He’s incredibly remorseful, and he’s doing everything he can to do the right thing,” Chavez’s lawyer, Matthew Benninger, told The New York Times. Rolling Stone After the hearing.
“He accepted responsibility and surrendered himself.” [medical] “The government's investigation was really good,” the lawyer said.
Speaking to reporters after Chavez's first appearance, Benninger said his client was “cooperating to the greatest extent possible to try to correct what happened here.”
Earlier this month, Perry’s live-in personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, 59, and former TV producer Eric Fleming, 54, who prosecutors described as Perry’s “street dealer,” pleaded guilty in the case (though the case was not public at the time). Fleming admitted to supplying Iwamasa with 50 vials of ketamine in the weeks before Perry’s death, while Iwamasa admitted to injecting Perry with ketamine six times a day. On the day Perry died, Iwamasa admitted to giving Perry three injections of ketamine hours apart, including one described as a “large” injection given to Perry as he was getting ready to enter the jacuzzi and Iwamasa was heading out to run errands.
Prosecutors struck deals with Iwamasa, Fleming and Chavez before arresting Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 42, and alleged ketamine queen Jasvin Sangha, 41, on Aug. 15. Officials say Perry “became addicted” to intravenous ketamine while seeking treatment for depression and anxiety at a local clinic in the fall of 2023 and turned to the four suppliers charged in the case when the clinic refused to increase his dosage.
Both Plasencia and Sanga pleaded not guilty at their arraignment on Aug. 15. Plasencia was released on bail, but Sanga was denied bail after prosecutors alleged she posed a risk because of her British citizenship and that she had returned to selling ketamine after Perry’s death and the death of another man in 2019, allegedly linked to the ketamine she supplied. Authorities said a raid on her apartment in March turned up nearly 79 vials of ketamine and more than three pounds of orange pills containing methamphetamine.
Prosecutors say Plasencia and Chavez were aware of their sale to Perry while he was in a vulnerable state and struggling with addiction.
Under a plea agreement he signed with prosecutors on July 22, Chavez admitted that he illegally obtained ketamine in various forms, transported it to Placencia, and knew Placencia was selling it to Perry for personal use at the actor’s Pacific Palisades home. Chavez admitted that the vials of liquid ketamine sold to Perry were diverted from the former ketamine clinic or obtained through false statements to wholesale ketamine distributors. In one instance, Chavez said he knowingly provided Perry with nine 200-mg ketamine lozenges, which were fraudulently obtained through a prescription written for a previous patient without the patient’s knowledge or consent.
Between late September and October 2023, Chavez and Plasencia allegedly sold 20 vials of ketamine to Perry for about $55,000. Authorities say Perry paid $2,000 for a single vial that cost Chavez just $12.
“I wonder how much this idiot will pay?[Let’s] According to the indictment unsealed two weeks ago, Plasencia allegedly sent a text message to Chavez on Sept. 30, 2023. Later that day, Plasencia allegedly injected Perry with ketamine at the actor’s home and left vials behind for Iwamasa to administer without formal medical training.
After that first encounter, Plasencia allegedly texted Chavez that the interaction was “like a bad movie.” In subsequent conversations, Plasencia alleged that Chavez told him that Perry was looking for ketamine to help him quit smoking. Chavez admits under the plea agreement that ketamine has “no legitimate medical use” in treating nicotine addiction.
Attorney Matthew Benninger (left) and Dr. Mark Chavez (right) leave the Edward R. Roybal Federal Courthouse in Los Angeles, California.
Nancy Dillon
Under the plea agreement, Chavez admits that when Plasencia told him on Oct. 2, 2023, that he hoped to “re-engage” with Perry, Chavez replied, “Let’s do everything we can to make that happen.” Chavez admits that he knew Perry was receiving a potentially “dangerous” amount of ketamine and that he lied to a wholesaler when he asserted that he was using ketamine exclusively for treatment at the Dreamscape Ketamine Clinic in San Diego. Chavez admits that he stopped working with Dreamscape Ketamine by July 2023.
Chavez says he delivered 10 vials of liquid ketamine to Placencia on October 4, 2023, though he claims he had to reprimand Placencia for injecting Perry while the actor was sitting in the back seat of a car parked outside an aquarium in Long Beach, California.
A little more than a week before Perry’s death, Chavez said he lied to DEA investigators when they asked what happened to the ketamine that had been removed from Dreamscape Ketamine after Chavez severed ties to the clinic amid a dispute with his business partner. Chavez says he made up a story that he had transported the liquid ketamine to a medical facility and that the pills had dissolved in his car.
Chavez agreed to testify against Plasencia at trial in exchange for prosecutors recommending a reduced sentence when he was eventually sentenced. He reportedly knew Plasencia for at least 20 years and believed the doctor had “little, if any, experience treating patients with ketamine,” according to court filings.
In a deal Chavez struck with the California Medical Board on August 23, he agreed to have his medical and surgical licenses immediately suspended. The deal bars him from practicing medicine in California until a new order is issued. Meanwhile, Dr. Plasencia is still licensed to practice medicine, but he has been ordered to inform his patients of his pending criminal case. He has also been stripped of his ability to prescribe controlled substances.
Sanga and Plasencia are scheduled to return to court on September 4 for a status conference.
